We are all familiar with the social science concept of unintended consequences—outcomes that weren’t foreseen or intended. History is rife with examples of well-meaning intentions that somehow went awry. In the 19th century, Australia introduced rabbits into the country as means for providing an additional food supply for its indigenous people. What they got was a Bugs Bunny wonderland that resulted in an ecological nightmare that the country is still dealing with on some levels.
Closer to home, in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps introduced a lovely ornamental plant to help control erosion around the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) projects. Today the U.S. Forest Service estimates that kudzu is spreading at an annual rate of 2,500 acres a year and has earned the nickname of “the vine that ate the South.” Perhaps one of the worst examples of this phenomenon is Prohibition, when the federal government, trying to suppress the alcohol trade, drove the small-time suppliers out of business and consolidated the hold of large-scale organized crime on a multi-million-dollar national industry.